D&H between Binghamton and Schenectady

1) I am new to this so treat me gently
2) What is the proper name of the above line?
3) My son is railanning it and it seems to be embargoed. Whats up?

The CPR line between Schenectady NY and Sunbury PA (via Binghamton) is simply called the Freight Main Line. This name goes back to the days when the D&H was an independent railroad.

The D&H had many lines in the area around Schenectady, Albany, and Saratoga Springs, some of which are now abandoned. It could be that the particular area your son railfans is less busy than others nearby, or it could be that it's as good as it gets. There isn't a whole lot of rail traffic around there these days.

I'm moving your question to the Delaware and Hudson Forum where there will hopefully be better answers.

The question relates to the line between Schenectady and Binghamton and
this line originally was known as the Susquehanna Division in earlier D & H
days. The division was headquartered in Oneonta until operations were
centralized in Oneonta but I do not remember just what year this took
place.
Noel Weaver

It was late 1957, IIRC, that the Susquehanna Division (and the Pennylvania Division and Saratoga-Champlain Divisions) were abolished and consolidated in Albany. The dispatchers remained in Oneonta for a few more years until about 1961, when they and the cTc machine were moved to the General Office Building at Albany.

Joseph C. Brennan, P.E., (BCE, RPI, '29) was the last Superintendent at Oneonta. He became Assistant Chief Engineer at Albany. Joe was one of the D&H people who led me to work for them, a truly great guy to work for. He was also the engineer in charge of the design and construction of the Sanford Lake Extension during WW II. He could tell some stories about that project.

While the Susquehanna Division was in Oneonta, the Superintendent was always on the Board of the Oneonta Railroad YMCA. I remember the article in the Oneonta Star when Joe moved to Albany and gave up that seat on the board.

Gordon Davids

It is still the D&H. The line from Mechanicville, via Schenectady, to Delanson was the Schenectady Branch. It was also part of the Susquahanna Div. The main was Albany-Delanson.......
The Freight Main name was part of Guilford's through route from Mattawamkeag, ME.

When I was running on the MEC, the line from Bangor to Mattawaumkeag was called the "Keag" main line, which was short for the Mattawaumkeag Line. The "real" mainline would have been the line from Bangor, to Portland. Just a thought.......

Engineer Spike wrote:It is still the D&H.

and another point of view on that, is that it hasnt been the D&H since 1991 and its now fully CP!

(just making sure TBC has all the info!)

TBC,
there is still some controversy about wheather or not the D&H still exists..
its a grey area.
many employess say "my paycheck says D&H on it, so the D&H still exists." thats one point of view, and makes sense if you consider the D&H an operating subsidery of CP and still operating under the D&H name..(I dont know if that is true anymore..)

in my OPINION, and in the opinion of many railfans.. the D&H does not exist anymore..and hasnt existed since the early 1990's when the D&H system was wholly absorbed and taken over by the Canadian Pacific. CP still has three D&H "heritage units" running around in D&H lightning stripes:

http://www.trainweb.org/railpix/miscpix ... 9-2-01.jpg

but there are not, and will not be, any other new locomotives painted for the D&H.

you would think it would be obvious if a railroad existed or not!
but amazingly, with the D&H, it has been unclear for over 15 years now!

the D&H was a great railroad..I miss it.
I spent much of the 1980's railfanning the D&H along the southern tier..
but the D&H we knew and loved is gone..

Scot

scottychaos wrote:I spent much of the 1980's railfanning the D&H along the southern tier.Scot

I spent much of the 1970's canalfanning the D&H (the REAL D&H, the ORIGINAL D&H) along the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers.

GOLDEN-ARM wrote:When I was running on the MEC, the line from Bangor to Mattawaumkeag was called the "Keag" main line, which was short for the Mattawaumkeag Line. The "real" mainline would have been the line from Bangor, to Portland. Just a thought.......

When did you run on the MEC? Guilford took a number routes with various monickers along the MEC, B&M, and D&H, called them the "Freight Main" and painted over the mileposts as close to the mileage from 'Keag as they could. Today the main line offically begins at 'Keag.

The defect detector I can hear with the scanner says D & H detector, milepost xxx. So the D & H still must exist as a subsidiary.

Don't go by detectors, railroads take very long sometimes to change the scripts for the little guys in the boxes.

Joshua

It's a subsidiary of CP. They just haven't gotten around to changing the men in the boxes yet.

the D&H still exists and may do so for a long time for a variety of reasons.

Even though it is a wholly owned CP sub as an independent corporation it can at sometime in the future be sold as such fairly easily (from a bookkeeping aspect).

There may be property or depreciation on the books that would be messy to bring into the CP accounting stream.

There may also be potential legal liabilities incurred before the CP acquired the property for which the CP as a whole is not liable (ala the 1980s S&L crisis).

Is it independent in the sense that it can do whatever it wants, obviously not, the CP makes the decisions and passes them down.

And until such time in the future that it may get out from under the CP, I'm afraid that independent operations and paint schemes are a thing of the past.